The Autumn Sun continues to rise as Vibrant Sun impresses in Group 1
Three-year-old filly leads home impressive trifecta for Arrowfield’s exciting young stallion
Arrowfield boss John Messara on Saturday night said the stud was “thrilled” with The Autumn Sun (Redoute’s Choice) claiming an elite-level trifecta in the Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m), hailing the rare feat as a sign the young stallion was on his way to becoming a renowned Classics sire.
In a stunning result from Morphettville’s coveted three-year-old fillies’ feature, second-season sire The Autumn Sun struck the first three as the Price-Kent trained second-favourite Vibrant Sun ($6) scored a tough, narrow win over the fast-finishing Private Legacy ($18) and Coco Sun ($8.50).
The outcome provided further fuel for a growing fire around The Autumn Sun on the breeding landscape.
Few modern stallions have gone to stud under as much expectation as Australia’s Champion Three-Year-Old Colt of 2018-19, the Chris Waller-trained, often awe-inspiring, five-time Group 1 winner of such jewels as the Caulfield (Gr 1, 1600m) and Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), and the Rosehill Guineas (Gr 1, 2000m).
Some in and around Arrowfield may have been holding their breath through the sire’s first season of results on the track as just four Australian winners trickled in from 26 runners – even if they included a dual Group winning two-year-old in Autumn Ballet and Coco Sun, who took an Adelaide Listed with only 16 days left in the season.
But just two weeks ago, The Autumn Sun was provided with a first top-tier victory courtesy of the Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman-trained Autumn Angel’s Australian Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m) triumph earlier in the month, as another of his offspring ran fifth in Tutta La Vita.
And on Saturday, three more fillies brought an even stronger result in Adelaide that will have had Messara – as astute a judge as Australian breeding has seen – pumping his fists with a broad smile of validation.
Saturday’s trifecta will push The Autumn Sun to third on the Australian second-season sires’ table – where he’s second by winners – and well into the top ten among three-year-old sires. In his second season with runners, he has 35 winners from 76 runners, and his three stakes victors crucially include two at the top-tier.
Not only did Vibrant Sun lead throughout under Mark Zahra to head in The Autumn Sun’s trifecta, the eight-year-old stallion was represented by a quarter of the 16-filly field, with The Autumn Belle ($61) running 14th.
“I’m thrilled,” Messara told ANZ Bloodstock News on Saturday. “We’ve seen signals that he’s going to be a Classic stallion, and this is a sign for us that that’s going to happen.
“Chris Waller told me last year he felt The Autumn Sun was going to be a Classics stallion – Oaks, Derbies, Guineas, et cetera – and that’s what he’s proving to be.
“Only very few stallions can manage this sort of result in a Classic race. Sir Tristram did it in the New Zealand Oaks. High Chaparral did it over here in the Australian Derby. It’s only happened a few times and, incidentally, always with successful stallions.
“So it’s a good signpost for us. It gives us confidence.”
Noting The Autumn Sun was bred on the reverse cross to the great racehorse and sire Frankel (Galileo) – being by a Danehill (Danzig) son out of a Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare – Messara said the wait for his sire to start hitting the highs was perhaps not as gruelling as outside observers may have thought.
“People in Australia breed for the Golden Slipper and seem to make judgements based on whether you had a starter in the race, or a starter in the lead-up, or alternatively in any other two-year-old race. But internationally, it’s an irrelevance,” Messara said.
“And The Autumn Sun’s progeny needs a little bit of time to mature, and by the time they’re fully grown at three or three-and-a-half, they can show us what they can do.
“That’s not to say he won’t get some sharper ones. I know he will, and I’ve got one or two in the drawer coming out soon. But fundamentally, he’s bred on the reverse cross as Frankel, and his progeny are acting in the same manner as Frankel’s progeny. Most of them do need a bit of time. His strength is going to be in the Guineas and Oaks and Derbies.”
With his siring feat on Saturday, The Autumn Sun emulated High Chaparral’s (Sadler’s Wells) 2010 AJC Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) trifecta with Shoot Out, Descarado and Monaco Consul. Sir Tristram (Sir Ivor) had the first three home in the 1986 New Zealand Oaks (Gr 1, 2400m), with Royal Heights beating Empire Rose and Eau D’Etoile.
Away from Classics, Zabeel (Sir Tristram) sired the trifecta of the 1991 Caulfield Cup (Gr 1, 2400m) with Sky Heights, Laebeel and Inaflury, while Zoustar (Northern Meteor) had Sunlight beat home his current Widden barnmate Zousain and present day Aquis stallion Lean Mean Machine in the Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) of 2018.
Arrowfield titan Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice) also had the first three home in the 2017 Inglis Sires’ (Gr 1, 1400m) for two-year-olds, through Invader leading home Summer Passage and Trapeze Artist.
“I take nothing away from Zoustar or Snitzel,” Messara said, “but this Australasian Oaks was a proper, tough, Classic race.
“And just to have the number of horses you need to have in the race to do it, is a good indication. And the Australasian Oaks looked a very competitive race – it had the first three home from the New Zealand Oaks in it,” he said, referencing Pulchritudinous (Wrote), Positivity (Almanzor) and Qali Al Farrasha (Almanzor), who finished fifth, ninth and 13th in Saturday’s Group 1 Classic.
“I’m really gratified, because if a horse like The Autumn Sun – with his credentials as a racehorse, his looks and his pedigree – doesn’t make it, you sort of say to yourself, ‘Well I should go and do something else, because I’ll never pick one who will’.
“He just ticks every box, he did from the start, and it’s also very gratifying he was bred by Arrowfield, in a joint-venture with the Aga Khan.”
Perversely, all this comes days after Arrowfield announced The Autumn Sun had suffered a pelvic bone injury in his paddock, raising immediate fears over whether he’d be fit for the start of the breeding season on September 1.
Messara said, however, Arrowfield was “confident, and the vet’s confident, he’ll heal completely by September”.
After an initial year at $77,000 (all fees inc GST), The Autumn Sun has stood for $66,000 for the past four seasons, last year ranking fourth among Arrowfield’s six sires after Snitzel (Redoute’s Choice, $247,500), Dundeel (High Chaparral, $82,500) and Japanese shuttler Maurice (Screen Hero, $82,500).
After Autumn Angel’s Australian Oaks win, Arrowfield’s bloodstock manager Jon Freyer indicated to ANZ Bloodstock News the stud was unlikely to be tempted, in the current climate, to increase the rising nine-year-old’s service fee this spring.
It remains to be seen whether a Group 1 trifecta may heighten the temptation, when Arrowfield bosses meet to set their 2024 service fees next week.
“We’ll think about it. We haven’t made any decision yet,” Freyer said last night. “Getting a Group 1 winner [Autumn Angel] is one thing. Getting a Group 1 trifecta is another. We’ll give it [a fee rise] some consideration. It’s not impossible.”
Meanwhile, co-trainer Michael Kent Jr said Saturday’s triumph at Vibrant Sun’s seventh start was also vindication for the stable’s faith in the filly, who was bought by Mick Price and Sheamus Mills Bloodstock for $260,000 from breeders Canning Downs draft at the 2022 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale.
Vibrant Sun debuted at three last October in a four-start campaign that netted a 1715-metre Geelong maiden win – by eight lengths – before an ambitious leap resulted in a tenth-placed finish in Caulfield’s Thousand Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).
This time in, she became The Autumn Sun’s fourth stakes-winner when taking Moonee Valley’s Alexandra Stakes (Gr 3, 1600m) on March 23. She then missed a key lead-up to yesterday in Morphettville’s Auraria Stakes (Gr 3, 1800m), won by the Patrick Payne-trained Wings Of Song (Mendelssohn), who ran a 0.9 length fourth on Saturday, having been sent off as the $5 favourite.
“What a gutsy effort by the filly,” Kent told Racing.com. “Third-up, over 2000 metres, she went straight to the front … She was there to be beaten all the way. Huge run.
“She missed a run in the Auraria, had a little setback, so it’s a massive job by the whole team back at home.”
Zahra managed to lift Vibrant Sun to her narrow win despite the sight of her reins loosely flapping about in the home straight – reminiscent of his Caulfield Cup success on Verry Elleegant (Zed) in 2020.
“I won a Caulfield Cup dropping the rein, so it’s still counts. It’s not ideal, but a win’s a win,” said Zahra, proud of his filly for fighting off her main early challenger – Pulchritudinous – over the first 200 metres of the home straight, before gritting to the line defying the late challenges of Greg Hickman’s Private Legacy and Team McEvoy’s Coco Sun.
“It was a good, gutsy win. She was probably out on her feet a little bit. She was entitled to be.”
Vibrant Sun is the latest and best of just two living foals from Tasmanian Group 3 winner Vibrant Rouge (Written Tycoon), whose mating with The Autumn Sun effects a 3m x 4m duplication of Danehill, through the less-fancied dual-son way, in Redoute’s Choice and Vibrant Rouge’s damsire West Point (Danehill).
Vibrant Rouge has had a difficult time at stud, with nine covers resulting in just two live foals, and three born deceased. She has missed three times, and was last covered by Jonker (Spirit Of Boom).